Texas Congressman/GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul was in Iowa Saturday. After he’d been tailgating in Iowa City before the Iowa Hawkeye football game, Paul made his way to Des Moines. We sat down for an interview in a room in downtown Des Moines the campaign uses for a call center.
"It’s my first one," Paul said of his Iowa City tailgating experience as we started the conversation. "I didn’t know that was a big deal. A lot of parties going on. I’ve heard of them and seen them from a distance at the Astrodome in Houston, but it’s all in one lot. Here, they’re all over town in everybody’s yard. It was fascinating."
"Let’s talk about something you discussed here in Iowa at the end of October — the currency crisis," I began.
"Everybody’s concerned about their cost of living and their standard of living," Paul replied. "Costs are going up and their salaries are going up but they can’t keep up. They don’t know if they can pay their bills and they have a lot of debt and this all has to do with the currency. It has to do with what the Federal Reserve does and that’s why I talk about monetary policy. It’s the loss of the value of the money that is the culprit and it’s not just costs going up, it’s really the value of the dollar that’s going down and this is tied into all our financial bubbles and of course when bubbles burst, it’s very, very painful for the people who are left holding a lot of worthless debt and that’s what happened when the housing bubble burst and a lot of people were initiated into this when the NASDAQ bubble burst and the big bubble is the dollar bubble.
"People have been using dollars for these many decades as if the dollar was as good as gold and now they’re beginning to find out that people don’t like holding dollars. Even the Canadian dollar’s stronger than the U.S. dollar and that has sent a signal and so people are paying a lot of attention."
Henderson: "Your party doesn’t appear to be of unanimity on this issue."
Paul: "It isn’t so much that they’re opposed to what I’m saying as there aren’t that many people who have talked about it. Neither have the Democrats talked about it, so it’s been a long time since monetary policy has been an issue in the presidential campaign."
Henderson: "Jack Kemp."
Paul: "Kemp would talk about it and we had some similarities but also some differences, too. Jack would bring up the idea of gold and this was back in the ’80s when he was more interested in it and this was when our gold commission was on and I was on the gold commission, but ultimately the people will demand sound money and it’s interesting when I talk at the universities that I get as much applause when I criticize the Federal Reserve as I do when I criticize the tax system, so there’s more people who are thinking about it and are understanding it….If the currency goes down, it’s an indication that there’s something significantly wrong with the economy of that country and I think we’re seeing that right now and if you look at many great nations and great empires, when they faltered their currency faltered. When the British Pound lost dominance the British Empire fell apart and there was one time that happened to the Spanish and the Soviet system didn’t work as they never had a sound currency, so the currency is a good reflect of the soundness of the economic system a country’s following….We have to live within our means and if we don’t, the dollar’s going to be destroyed and people will keep getting further and further behind and their cost of living increases will never keep up."
Paul talked a bit about his 1988 campaign as the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee, saying it is a "painful thought" to consider running again as a third party candidate if he does not win the Republican nomination. Read more here on that topic.
On the topic of illegal immigration, Paul said he agreed with some of the approaches Tom Tancredo advocates. But Paul did not endorse the approach Tancredo has taken on Iowa airwaves with his television ad which depicts a terrorist bombing an American shopping mall.
"I wouldn’t have put the ad on," Paul said, adding he doesn’t want to "reward people for cutting in line. I want people to wait in line and I emphasize even more strongly than he does that you stop subsidizing illegal immigration…I don’t want the states to have any mandates on them to provide any free services and that would discourage individuals coming here knowing, ‘Oh, we’re going to get amnesty and I’ll have the kids here and if I get sick I’ll go to the emergency room.’ It’s that attitude that I think is so bad, but I don’t like to work on this idea of fear, you know, that you have to put tanks and fences and guns on the border because one out of 20 million might be a terrorist. You can overdo some of that."
About O.Kay Henderson
Kay is a founding member of the Radio Iowa network newsroom. In 1994, she became the network’s news director. She’s a featured reporter and commentator on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press,” and the 2002 recipient of the Shelley Award.
Pretty good, can’t wait to hear it!
As a full time currency trader based in the UK and working for myself, I thought I would add my thoughts to your post. I trade the USD/CAD pair a great deal and have studied the Canadian economy in detail, so I hope the following is useful. Six years after it hit an all time low in 2002 the Canadian dollar has since gained almost 40% against the US dollar and the question everyone is asking is whether this trend will continue, and if so for how much longer. On the economic front, the data presented by the Bank of Canada has continued to indicate a slowdown in growth particularly in the manufacturing sector. Canadian job prospects remain good, which would suggest that the economy is resilient at present to any slowdown. However, with the possibility of a full recession in the US, then further slowing of the Canadian economy is inevitable. In recent months the combination of favourable inflation figures and evidence of weaker growth will, I believe, encourage the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates to follow those in the US, but that these cuts will be small to avoid the possibility of increasing inflationary pressures in the economy. Overall, I believe that the Canadian dollar is unlikely to weaken sharply against the US dollar, but the current position of parity may be difficult to sustain in the longer term and a move back to around 1.10 or 1.15 would seem the most likely target. If resistance is penetrated at 1.15 then the Loonie could weaken further.